portraits

Carolyne Landon

Medicine Unwrapped is the second portrait I’ve painted of Germaine Sitting Crow. The first was Medicine Wrapped, but it was not until a year later that I felt enough understanding of Native American spiritual life to paint Germaine as she is here, in prayer. When I first exhibited this painting in a teepee in Vermillion, South Dakota, Germaine took me as her hunka sister. 

My Life As Kim Novak portrays Andrew Mellen wearing the dress of the transitional character he portrayed in his one-man cabaret performance piece of the same name. The portrait is both a militant and vulnerable representation of the questions the performance asks of the viewer.

Ulysses is a portrait of Robert Nelson, a collector and seller of books. Born into an Irish family, Nelson identified with James Joyce and believed Ulysses to be among the best books ever written. He lived this book. 

It is a remarkable journey to paint a portrait, to have the privilege of looking deeply into others’ lives, to visit and to share time with them, and to tell their stories.

Carolyne D. Landon holds an MFA in Interdisciplinary Art from Goddard College. Landon’s fine art paintings, drawings, and prints have been exhibited in museums and commercial galleries in the USA, Korea, and China. Her illustrations have appeared in The Smithsonian Magazine, and her writing and photography have been published by The Nature Conservancy. Her work as a courtroom TV-news artist appeared for several years on NBC-TV News and in The Washington Post. She recently authored and digitally illustrated the iPad book app, “The Genesis Scroll: The Ancient Genealogy,” now available on Apple iTunes.

Landon’s teaching credits include working as an associate professor of art at the Corcoran College of Art and Design, Washington, DC; as an instructor at The New York Academy of Fine Arts; and as Art Faculty at Oglala Lakota College, Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, South Dakota.